What Is Online Reputation Management and How It Can Fix Your Business Image

What is Online Reputation Management?

Gone are the days when customers were considered to be passive audiences in the grander scheme of things. By ‘things’ we are of course referring to a business’s sales targets or lack thereof. With social media giving them more authority than ever before, the humble customer has a voice today that is a force to be reckoned with.

In other words, what they say goes as far as a company’s reputation goes because people like them take their word seriously. Regular interactions have made websites evolve into more than static brochures.

Irrespective of business size, your customers are tweeting about you and posting reviews about their experience with your products/services.

If you think you can ignore them like before, you are in trouble. This is where online reputation management in Miami or ORM comes into the picture. Basically, it helps businesses create strategies that can influence public perception online. If done strategically, it can drive opinion about a business’s products and/or services according to its target needs.

Here are some tips that can help you do that and more:

Fix Negative High-Traffic Articles

Some people may have mentioned your brand in old articles, reviews, guides or other online content. But if the content portrays your business in an unfair and negative manner, that may be a problem. If those articles receive heavy organic traffic, that is a lot of people reading inaccurate things about your company.

Don’t panic. The best way to nip the issue in the bud is to locate those articles ASAP and post rebuttals. This is where brand ambassadors come into the picture. They are trained to locate such content and create social proof that proves them wrong.

They do that by responding to negative reviews as and when they crop up and by encouraging happy customer to post feedback. Use incentives such as special offers in exchange for testimonials to make the process smoother.

Deal with Detractors Silently

If someone writes something unflattering about your brand, don’t call them out for it via comment. All that will do is highlight an issue that should be taken care of silently. Plus, malicious posters may take that as an opportunity to twist your words and use them against you.

In other words, if you respond negatively, they will use it as ammunition to malign you further. Remember, the damage is done the instant someone tweets negative reviews which increases the damage. If the attack is unprovoked and has no basis in truth you can choose to take legal action and inform the poster via email.

This will do two things. One, it will help you silence haters without letting your customers know. And two, it can help you discourage anyone else you tries to malign your business reputation.

Final Thoughts…

The fact is that owning a business does not stop at sales management. You also need to manage its reputation online to ensure it remains relevant to target customers. If you are looking for online Reputation Management in Coral Gables, look no further than Smash Interactive. They are known for working fast without comprising the results their clients need.